Live from Music Row Thursday morning on The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy – broadcast on Nashville’s Talk Radio 98.3 and 1510 WLAC weekdays from 5:00 a.m. to 8:00 a.m. –  host Leahy welcomed Tennessee House Speaker Cameron Sexton to the newsmaker line to explain top priorities, the redistricitng of Tennessee in contrast with what many other states have done to Republicans through the same channels.
Leahy: We are joined now by the Tennessee Speaker of the House of Representatives Cam Sexton. Good morning Speaker Sexton.
Sexton: Good morning. How are you today?
Leahy: We are delighted that our technology has worked! Yeah! (Laughs)
Sexton: Insane.
Leahy: Good thing the Tennessee General Assembly is in session today. Where are the big elements on the agenda that you see?
Sexton: Yes, today we’re going to move the redistribution bill to the House floor for Monday night. I think the Senate takes it up today. That’s the biggest thing that’s before us right now. Other than that, I think there’s a lot of educational things, education funding.
I think we’re also looking at some criminal justice reform, maybe some truth and sentencing and victim rights bills. And then we’ll just kind of see what happens with the budget.
We’re going to be very cautious, as you know, and your listers know that the Biden administration’s economy is running inflation through the roof higher than it was during the Jimmy Carter presidency. And so we’re going to be very cautious about how we budget because inflation is a huge factor for us.
Leahy: Now let’s get to this redistricting. As our listeners know, every 10 years we have a census. It’s right there in the Constitution. And there was a 2020 census, and they’ve reallocated the number of members of the House of Representatives by state.
Some states gained representatives, some lost. California and New York lost, Texas and Florida gained. Tennessee remained static. In other words, there are still nine members. There were nine members before the state legislatures in every state except for those that only have one member of the House redraw the district lines.
The current proposal in the state House would have one major change and would separate the Fifth Congressional District, which now is almost entirely Davidson County. I guess 90 percent Davidson County.
It would split Davidson County into three separate districts, having the impact of likely changing the congressional delegation from seven Republicans and two Democrats to eight Republicans and one Democrat.
Do you think that plan will be passed, in essence, pass both houses, be signed by the governor, and then what will happen after that?
Sexton: Yes. It should pass the House and Senate. It should pass the Senate today and the House on Monday and be on the governor’s desk shortly thereafter. You’re right. We have the capability of redistributing every 10 years.
That’s what we have to do. It’s based off new population. Tennessee was pretty close to gaining an extra seat, but not quite there. But once we pass it, the Democrats are threatening to sue.
So we’ll see if they want to go that route or not. We fulfilled the constitutional duty. And we also protected the Voting Rights Act which was one of the things we’re supposed to look at on congressional.
When you draw congressional compared to the state House or state Senate, there’s different rules based on judicial decisions. And so we made sure in all those instances that we followed the rules that are laid out, make sure that we protect the Voting Rights Act.
Leahy: Yes, exactly. Now let’s talk about that a little bit. Voting Rights Act of 1965 is a key element that courts look at when they decide if the state legislature have passed a redistricting plan that is consistent with the law.
I know in Ohio, Republican state legislature there, the Democrats challenged the redistricting and it went to their state Supreme Court, and it was overturned on a four to three vote. Very close.
It seems to me, from everything I’ve read that the way the Tennessee General Assembly has redrawn those lines is very much in compliance with the Voting Rights Act. I’m not quite sure if that can be said in Ohio. Your thoughts?
Sexton:Â No, we complied with the Voting Rights Act. We have staff attorneys, and we run by what we’ve done with our AG to make sure that the AG can defend it and make sure that it doesn’t violate anything. And they assured us that they believe in the same direction that we do on what we had done.
So they feel very confident if we do get sued to go to court and defend it. I will say in relation to Ohio, we’re a little different. There’s nothing in the law or Voting Rights Act that says you can’t split county.
Davidson County was split before. Shelby County has been split before. You hear the Democrats complain about how someone who represents Nashville can’t represent rural areas, that’s just not right. But then they forget that David Kustoff, congressman in the Eighth District, represents Memphis and Shelby County as part of it.
But he goes all the way up into Henry County and Obion County. So I think what they’re trying to do is they’re just trying to throw out anything to see what sticks. And they keep changing their arguments. And we’ll just see what happens.
Leahy: The Democrats here in Tennessee are threatening a lawsuit. In Ohio, they made the threat quickly followed through. I just wonder, do you think the Democrats really think their case would be strong enough to file a lawsuit?
Sexton: Who knows what they’re thinking? All we can do is what you should do, which is you run it by the AG. You make sure you protect the Voting Rights Act. You make sure you protect the majority-minority district.
And there’s only one in Tennessee in the congressional map and that’s actually the Ninth District. The Fifth was not a majority-minority district. They’re implying or trying to make it seem that way.
And the other thing is they’re making it seem like we took race into account when we never looked at the rates of the district and made that decision. We drew it based on census block and based on population.
And East Tennessee lost population. West Tennessee lost population. So they had to expand towards Middle Tennessee and that created the problems in Middle Tennessee when we were trying to draw those districts.
Leahy: Last questions for you because I know you’re busy today. Got a lot to do. If the Democrats were to file a lawsuit, would they file it in state court or federal court?
Sexton: No, we believe they would file it in federal court where they feel like they may have a better advantage than state court. But even then, when you look at the precedent-based on everything that’s happened and what the Supreme Court has said about redistricting and what is allowed and what you can look at.
The Supreme Court says that you can look at party affiliation and you can do other stuff like that. So they’re going to have to sue in federal court. And we’ll just see what happens. But it does take money to do that.
They can only sue so many states. They sued almost every state around us, Mississippi, Georgia, North Carolina, Ohio. So we’ll see. The interesting thing is what I would like to say, though, is as some of the Democrats are complaining about us and what we did, which is not true on their part and what they’re accusing us of, they’re not even looking at what California, Maryland, Illinois and New York did to Republicans.
And so if you want to complain that we did something, look at those other states like California, who took nine Republican congressional districts and deleted them out of their map. And look at New York, who did six. Maryland, who did all of them and Illinois, who did all of them.
Leahy: Outstanding response on that.
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Tune in weekdays from 5:00 – 8:00 a.m. to the Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy on Talk Radio 98.3 FM WLAC 1510. Listen online at iHeart Radio.
Photo “Tennessee State Capitol” by Andre Porter CC BY-SA 3.0.
